neverland auction February 17, 2009

everyone’s hurting during these recession times, including Michael Jackson! he’s apparently auctioning off a bunch of his crap he has hoarded throughout the years:

In April, an extraordinary auction will provide an unprecedented look into the private world of Michael Jackson. More than 2,000 items, ranging from personal effects and costumes to pieces from Jackson’s private art collection as well as fittings and furnishings from his Neverland ranch, will be up for sale at a four-day public auction at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.

Given the continuing fascination that the self-styled King of Pop exerts over the public imagination, Darren Julien, the affable Los Angeles-based auctioneer of celebrity merchandise who is directing the sale, expects a media circus to descend on the hotel as well as tribes of devoted Jackson fans from all corners of the globe. Select lots are to be sent on a touring exhibition that will arrive in Dublin and London in March before a full-scale exhibition opens for one week in Beverly Hills prior to the sale.

The idea, Julien says, is to create the kind of spectacle with which Michael Jackson has been so often associated throughout his career. This is the first sale that the superstar has sanctioned of his property. Michael took legal action in 2007 to try, unsuccessfully, to halt an auction held in Las Vegas of Jackson family items that had been acquired by New Jersey businessman Henry Vaccaro.

The sale also includes vintage video game machines, as well as Jackson’s collection of 18th- and 19th-century art. There are books about Disney, the Three Stooges, Peter Pan and Alfred Hitchcock, as well as a collection of black history books, including the autobiography of Malcolm X. Then there is a selection of his own stage costumes, dating back from the days of the Jackson 5 through to the present. There is one of the fedoras he wore in the video for Billie Jean; a pair of trousers so studded with diamanté that they feel as heavy as chain mail; there are customised military jackets, featuring insignia surely acquired on his global travels – including badges from the Royal Air Force and the Thai Narcotics Bureau.

hilarious and awesome, some people are going to walk away with MJ’s treasures! i wish i could afford to get these for pk: